Editor's Note - Still Dealing With The SNOW!

Boy, coming directly off the homefront situation with my Aunt, and dealing with not one, but now two, early snow storms ... I sure hope that old adage of "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is still in play (Especially, after a special, 2.5-hour Lawrence Welk, 100th Birthday Celebration this evening - of all "Patriotic" songs)...

Exhausted again, having to deal with more snow, the still unshoveled driveway (including the street/sidewalk portion) before tomorrow's dump comes (and it's about a 100-ft driveway)

With it going from snow, to rain, and then dropping into the teens tomorrow night, it all will be freezing solid.

And with M/T/W predicted to be cold, highs only in the low-to-mid 20's, can't count on a Mother Nature melt.

So, not wanting to have huge "Ice Banks" and x-amount of inches of rain-soaked-turned-to-ice-snow, had to get out there again and dig into it.

Two angels appeared, in the form of neighbors (and one with a brand new snowblower) helped immeasurably and great (but not totally complete) progress was made (h/t to Mike and Les).

So, posts will be coming tomorrow ... Promise ... If I have to shovel with one hand, and type with the other, we'll get some fresh posts up (and, hopefully, update our neglected and abused Garlic Poll).

Thanks for hanging in there

Peace
JTD

Editor's Note - Technical Difficulties - Namely, 11-Inches of Snow!

Good Evening Garlic Fans

Hope you are well - especially those of you in the Northeast (or wherever), perhaps still digging out of this LATE AUTUMN, hours-long mini-blizzard just received.

Where the Garlic Patch sits, 11-inches of, mostly, light, powdery snow to deal with (there was, briefly, near the end, some sleet or frozen rain mix in it, giving the last inch, or two, a bit more weight).

And, if you are in the area, I hope you find the political huffing-and-puffing over the storm, or more to-the-point, clearing the roads, most, deliciously, humorous.










Quite the amount of chest-beating going on, over drives and travel, that, normally would take 20-minutes, turned into 4-5-hours ordeals yesterday, due to heavily-falling snow, causing vehicles to go at the breakneck speed of a mile-or-two-an-hour.

Where were the sanders, where were the plows, the leather-lunged pols were screaming, with red face and bulging neck veins.

Well, they were stuck in the same traffic, being that business shut down and let people go home all at the same time ... Schools ran their full day, not letting students out early, which had their buses in the middle of the gridlock (and students getting home, 5-6-hours later, in many cases).

And all this brouhaha was in the face of the local weatherman, who called it exactly as it played out, imploring, beseeching, people to listen, as the height of the heaviest snow would be falling during the commuting hours.














So, we are having Technical Difficulties this evening, chiefly, I am far too tired to finish off three posts already started, with any thing close to level of creativity that I demand, let alone you, our readers.

True, I could turn to replicating - copy-and-pasting - just about anything coming out of the Bush Grindhouse, and the humor and satire content-of-the-day would be met.

But that isn't how it works.

It is with gasping, and ebbing, energy I type this note, having just risen from the second of two, deep, power naps in the past three-hours.

So, with a good, sound night of sleep (hopefully, oh yes, ever so hopefully), we will be back on the case tomorrow, the calm before our next storm on Sunday (shaping up to be a snow-rain mix here).

Thanks again for visiting, and reading, The Garlic.

Peace
JTD

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons Mitchell Baseball Steroid Investigation Is Unlike CIA Torture Tapes Case

News Item: All-Star Roster Shows Up on Mitchell Report

10. Everyone is pretty sure that White House Council Harriet Meirs didn't know baseball players were taking steroids

9. So far, no one has asked current or former baseball executive to investigate CIA erasing torture tapes

8. No evidence - yet - White House told baseball players to take steroids

7. No record of Al Qaeda, or other terrorists, taking steroids

6. Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) said she didn't write a letter to MLB, asking them to not let baseball players take steroids

5. No reports of Major League Baseball dragging their steroid users off to black site prisons in foreign countries

4. Brigadier General Thomas W. Hartmann not prepared to say if a terrorist hits a homerun, that it is, indeed, a homerun

3. No known videotape of baseball players, or terrorists, being "steroidboarded"

2. No memo found yet of President Bush telling baseball players to "leave no marks", so that, if there's no sign of steroid use, it didn't happen

1. Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) wouldn't be able to say that "Hitting a homerun is like swimming"

Juiced-Up Links

The Mitchell Report

TPM's Timeline of the CIA's Torture Tapes

The Mitchell Report - Highlights of the Mitchell Report, released Thursday

The Mitchell Report: Naming Names

Steroid Report Implicates Top Players

Clemens, Pettitte named in baseball steroid report

Mitchell report: Baseball slow to react to players' steroid use

Garlic Coverage of Baseball Steroid Scandal

If we were set up like a newspaper, think of this post as a sidebar story.

The Garlic has been at the forefront of the blogosphere with it's detailed coverage, the digging, the intrepid reporting, of baseball's steroid scandals - stories you won't find anywhere else.

Take them out for a spin and enjoy!

Bonds Indicted ... Let's Have A Barrypalooza!

Top Ten Cloves: How Barry Bonds Celebrated Breaking Hank Aaron's Homerun Record Last Night

Retro Garlic ... Bonds Bashing and Landis Landing ... In The Lab ... Again

Breaking News! ... Baseball Bombshell Expands Steroid Scandal; Giants’ Bonds Tests Positive For Landis Testosterone; Cyclist Said To Be Kingpin Of Lucrative Doping Ring, Selling His Own DNA

Politics and Sports Collide; Paperwork Mix-Up Has Feingold Censuring Bonds and MLB Investigating Bush

















Second Palmeiro Bombshell: Tests Positive For Cialis

IOC Dumps Baseball; Fewer HR's and Little Scandal Potential; New MLB Ban On Steroids Limits PR Effort of Games, IOC TV Time

Schumer, MLB Call For New Roberts Probe; No Records Found Of His Work As Umpire; May Have To Abstain From Potential Steroid Cases

Wheaties Official Breakfast Cereal; of MLB; Box To Feature Steroids; Drops Bombshell In Break From Tradition Established in 1934

More Steroid Hearings - The NFL Goes To Congress; McGwire Surprise Witness; Still Not Talking

And, if you are new to baseball, brush up with the best darn baseball primer on the World Wide Web!

Special Essay - Play Ball! ... Batter Up! - Could You Please Tell Me, What Is This Thing Called Baseball?

Retro Garlic ... We Told You So!

Well, things have been moving along this week like an Alberta Clipper.

'Tis the season, and in our world that means a bevy of Bush Grindhouse scandals (and if you are having a hard time keeping track of them all, Keith Olbermann has started a new feature - Bushed - on his 'Countdown' program ).

And today, we have the opportunity to go Retro Garlic, and a short Retro it is.

With a prolonged drumroll earlier this week, breath was held to see if I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby would be on the list for a Presidential Pardon, being he - hint, hint - announced he was dropping the appeal of his trial, and would ride as a convicted felon, until ...

This had many-a-pundit, as well as a good chunk of the blogosphere, salivating that the Bush Grindhouse's brick wall would come down, and The Commander Guy would have to comment on the treasonous scandal his staff engaged in - the exposure of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Alas, it didn't come.

Ahh, but The Garlic held on to its' skin, kept our powder dry, not seeing this as a condition the Bush Grindhouse would break its' pattern of lying, stonewalling, and obfuscation.

From The Garlic, on Monday;

"And, for all of you waiting to hear The Scooter, or The Bush Grindhouse, spill their guts, now that the appeal process is over, think again.

There's still the matter of Valerie Plame's possible lawsuit and, no doubt, they will continue to clam-up, citing that "litigation", if the Wilson's can revive their case, after it was thrown out last summer."

From Think Progress today;

What did Perino say in the gaggle? The Washington Post reports Perino found another convenient excuse to punt on answering about the White House’s involvement in the Plame leak. Perino said that she hadn’t spoken to Bush yet, but she cited the Wilson’s ongoing civil case as a reason not to comment:

I did talk to our counsel’s office because I forgot that there is a civil case that is pending on this issue. I did forget. The Wilsons have filed a case in civil court, it was dismissed, and they are on appeal."

And, even if the Wilson's announce they are dropping their appeal, the Bush Grindhouse will mow through legal cases, as many as they have to (and don't rule out the Hauptmann Case) to find something they can hid behind and stay silent.

That means, it's time to Cue up Que Sera Sera...

Links

Al Karmen: Being There

The Democratic Party: White House Still Won't Answer Libby Questions

Think Progress: White House Offers Convenient New Excuse For Not Talking About Plame Leak

Associated Press: Bush Pardons, Commuted Sentence

Well, That Wasn't Much Of A Wait ...

If Scooter Libby leaves that Christmas stocking hung, it may end up with not much more that a piece of coal in it.

'Cuz that Christmas Presidential Pardon sure ain't flying down the chimney this year!

The Department of Injustice released their 2007 List of Pardons today, and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not among the 29 names getting their holiday orgasm, their golden "I Got Away With It" certificate.

No doubt, the holiday eggnog in the Libby abode must be heavily rummed-up, and, perhaps, tasting a bit clumpy this evening.

What's an ass-kissing, law-breaking, CIA-covert-agent-exposing convicted felon have to do around this place to get a little love from his Compassionate Commander Guy ex-boss?

Like Tessio, in 'The Godfather", The Scooter must have been thinking "Hell, he can't do that ... It screws up all my plans ..."

Now, Little Scooter has to sit around, probably with Mary Matalin getting all in his face, constantly badgering him with drafts of new fundraising letters, listening to publishers tell him his previous books suck, but "if you write about what you did", which has to tempt the Mrs. Scooter to be barking in his ears, "Screw them, take the money!", keeping his steely pluck, relying on all his experience as a dedicated civil servant, and wait until next year to get his freedom.

Maybe Fred Thompson will drop out of the race (rather than waiting, about another two months, to be booted out of it, embarrassingly, with numbers that would only look good on a golf card) so he can be by his buddy's side, putting the arm on all those neocons to kick up a few bucks for the Little Scooter.

Wouldn't be surprised either, to hear news that Cheney was brought into the hospital -again - with a broken defibrillator.

Cheney has to be sitting around, stewing, the picture of a Looney Tune cartoon, his oversized head throwing off buckets of sweat, thinking about is this the time to say 'fuck it", and just issue the pardon himself.

Fox News will have to file away all that B-Roll, tape over the sappy soundtrack, book new talking heads for all the appearances they had the Little Scooter pegged for - across their Freakshow line-up (but, they will put him on with Chris Wallace anyway, lest they have to listen to him piss-and-moan about not getting anyone to come on his show).

Boy, sure wouldn't mind being the package of Sweet'N Low on the table, the next time Scooter and Judy get together for coffee

Bonus Scooter Links

Jane Hamsher: Poor Scooter, Always a Bridesmaid…

Breaking News! Fox Bounces The Juice and Brings In The Scooter; OJ Out, Libby In, As Fox Looks To Make Lemonade Out Of Their Lemons; Reagan Snares Cheney Aide For “If I Leaked ...” Special; No Hush Money But Donation Made To Defense Fund

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard Last Night At Scooter Libby Fundraiser


Scooter, you'll need to keep that pondering pose for, about, another year ...

Top Ten Cloves: Other Surprising Things White House Press Secretary Dana Perino Doesn't Know

News Item: WH Press Sec'y: 'I feel like I'm in school every day'

10. Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with, no involvement in, the Vietnam War

9. Watergate was a hotel, burglarized by Republican operatives, and the beginning of Richard Nixon's downfall, not a Beltway water-theme park

8. Life Magazine wasn't a pro-life publication, but a national news magazine

7. The 1965 Civil Rights Act wasn't the 60's equivalent of this decades Patriot Act

6. The Golden Jet was Bobby Hull's nickname, not Gary Powers' plane in the U-2 Incident (and no, not the band U2)

5. Nikita Khrushchev wasn't a Russian shoe salesman, but the Soviet Union leader, who banged his shoe on a desk at the U.N.

4. Charles Whitman didn't build the Texas Tower, on the campus of the Universtity of Texas, he was the Texas Tower Sniper, killing 14 people

3. The Huntley-Brinkley Report wasn't a big Senate investigation, but a NBC nightly news program

2. Captain Kangaroo was not a military officer, but host of an immensely popular morning children's television program

1. The Washington Monument is named after first President, not the city


It's A Perinopalooza!

In Dana Perino's World, The Glass Is Always, and Perpetually, Half-Full

Think Progress - Perino: ‘Once a Bushie, always a Bushie.’

Think Progress - Perino ‘Defends’ Email Statements: I Didn’t Lie, I Just Had No Idea What I Was Talking About

DailyKos: Dana Perino - Too ignorant to be Press Secretary?

Mike Nizza/NYT: Nobody’s Perfect: Press Secretary Edition

Edward Copeland: How about No Press Secretary Left Behind?


"Wait ... Wait ... I think I know that one ..."

All I Want For Christmas Is My Presidential Pardon

It would appear the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is placing his chips on "Presidential Pardon", with the news today that, despite continuing to claim his innocence, he is ending the appeal of his trial, leaving him, for the time being, a convicted felon.

In all likelihood, that was the deal from the beginning, but, considering the mental capacity of The Decider Guy, does he even remember The Scooter Guy?

Especially after, earlier this summer, he offered "I'm aware of the fact that perhaps somebody in the administration did disclose the name of that person ..."

Did Cheney have those CIA guys erase his memory as well?

Does Scooter get his Christmas stocking stuffed with a Presidential Pardon?

Is this Scooter's powerplay, to force the hand that will sign the pardon?

With the blizzard of new scandals that whacked the Bush Grindhouse in the past week - take your pick; A) the still-growing CIA Videotape erasure, B) The Iran NIE Report C) Sheldon Whitehouse's yeoman work in exposing the self-appointed rulings, declaring The Decider Guy, well, the real Decider Guy, as whatever he says is the law, is the law - is The Scooter getting nervous that something could happen - yes, the "I" word - comes down, before January 20th, 2009, killing off his going-out-the-door pardon?

Is this pressure from Darth Vader, that, perhaps, the device inside his chest is in it's last throes and he wants to see his little Robin (Ehhh, scratch that - the thought of Cheney and Libby in tights ... Nasty), free-and-clear while he's still ticking?

This oughta' put a few talking heads to work over the next few weeks.

Everybody can synchronize their watches, for the Libby Pardon Clock is, officially, set today.

Mary Matalin must be busy, drafting up those new fundraising letters, and urging all those Friends of Scooter, to start badgering The Decider Guy to make the only decision they know in their hearts should be made - Pardon our Little Scooter!

And, for all of you waiting to hear The Scooter, or The Bush Grindhouse, spill their guts, now that the appeal process is over, think again.

There's still the matter of Valerie Plame's possible lawsuit and, no doubt, they will continue to clam-up, citing that "litigation", if the Wilson's can revive their case, after it was thrown out last summer.

Still, it would make for entertaining viewing, to see a subpoenaed Scooter, sitting in front a Congressional Committee, displaying his deep dedication to public service, by taking the 5th, over-and-over. A veritable civics lesson for the cable news and C-Span viewers.

Scooter must be banking on that The Commander Guy has a Santa suit hanging in the closet, perhaps, right next to his Mission Accomplished" flightsuit.

Valerie Plame, covert CIA agent exposed, to punish her Iraq War-critical, Op-Ed-writing husband, and no one goes to jail for treason?

Sounds like another Bush Grindhouse "Mission Accomplished" to me.

It's Another Scooterpalooza!

Let's Hear It For The Quid Pro Quo ... New Garlic Song - Hush Little Libby

Jane Hamsher: Scooter Libby Drops Appeal, Ready To Testify Before Congress?

Shaun Mullen: A Fall Guy’s Final Fall

EmptyWheel: Scooter Libby, Still a Felon; the Unitary Executive, Still a Dubious Theory

The Carpetbagger Report: Libby drops appeal — and gives the White House a chance to divulge?

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush and Cheney walk, too; Even as the president confesses that Scooter Libby engaged in a cover-up -- after all, that was the verdict -- he completes the ultimate obstruction of justice in the Plame affair.

Libby Trial Update - The Scooter and Cheney Show Theme Song

Romney Speech: Where's Leonard Pinth Garnell When You Really Need Him?

Yeah, we hit this last Friday with a Top Ten Clove offering, but it just isn't sitting right.

Instead of laying it all out there about the Mormons, we got a dumpster-full of boiler-plate bullshit, the kind of campaign speech typically reserved for one of those Main Street, USA, 7AM Politics-and-Pancakes event.

If you listened to, primarily, the mainstream media punditry, and/or the Rightwing Freakshow, you may be lead to believe that Willard Mitt Romney, Republican panderer for President, gave a speech that ended war, famine, found a cure for cancer and otherwise, came off like an old Coca Cola commercial ("I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony ...").

Where was the droll Leonard Pinth Garnell when you really needed him, for this was, surely, an episode of "Bad Political Theatre" if there ever was one.

Pinth could have warned us, ever so slyly, indicating we were about to see a "a monumentally ill-advised, exquisitely awful, unrelentingly bad, pandering orgy of the highest order, drenched in self-importance, inflated with an astounding eye towards nothingness and dripping, so sweetly, with intolerance, it will make a bigots spine tingle ..."

Hosannas are being hoisted and the word "Presidential", and that "he looked Presidential", is being flung around like it was a Frisbee convention.

Listen to this dreck from 'The Boston Globe';

"Mitt Romney's highly anticipated religion speech yesterday was a political tour de force, rejecting the notion that he'd be bound as president by the leaders of his Mormon Church but also placing his faith among the many religions that constitute the "moral heritage" of the United States."

"Tour de Force? Moral Heritage?"

Peggy Noonan, that aging #1 Reagan Groupie, every so aching for a New Gipper, blew this wet kiss to Make-up Mitt;

"Mr. Romney gave the speech Thursday morning. How did he do?

Very, very well. He made himself some history. The words he said will likely have a real and positive impact on his fortunes. The speech's main and immediate achievement is that foes of his faith will now have to defend their thinking, in public. But what can they say to counter his high-minded arguments? "Mormons have cooties"?

It was a 40-minute-plus game of dodge ball, not even in the same ballpark of talking anything remotely close about Mormonism. No Joseph Smith banners on that stage. In fact, Make-Up Mitt only uttered the word "Mormon" once.

"Made himself some history?"

It was a Mad Lib, fill-in-the-blank stump speech, of the most generic terms, on Religion and Beliefs, not the bombshell, clear-the-decks, cover-your-childs' eyes, discourse on Mormonism.

He, and his campaign staff (the one's left not pretending to be a cop), knew that couldn't get the wall-to-wall, live, cable news coverage if Make-Up Mitt was going to prattle on about a cult (though, it could have been of interest to MSNBC, for the Doc-Bloc specials)

Lawrence O'Donnell, taking some heat for his comments yesterday on the McLaughlin Group was on-target with;

"This was the worst political speech of my lifetime. Because this man stood there and said to you "this is the faith of my fathers." And you, and none of these commentators who liked this speech realized that the faith of his fathers is a racist faith. As of 1978 it was an officially racist faith, and for political convenience in 1978 it switched. And it said "OK, black people can be in this church." He believes, if he believes the faith of his fathers, that black people are black because in heaven they turned away from God, in this demented, Scientology-like notion of what was going on in heaven before the creation of the earth."

Here's a few gems from Make-Up Mitt;

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

WOW!

Move over, Elmer Gantry, there's a new healer in town!

And that is was calculated to "end the discussion", as to his Mormonism, is extremely lame, or, as Leonard Pinth Garnell might say, "Astonishingly ill-chosen!"

That he can get away with an extended photo-op and now he's untouchable?

If, and it's big, huge, monumental "if", Romney does get elected (Hey, we do have 2000 as precedent, and, anyway, you'll likely see Elvis, with monkeys flying out of his ass, before that happens), you better get your God on ... And it better be the "right" God, or your toast.

"We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

More On Make-Up Mitt's Holier-Than-Thou Stump Speech

Pam's House Blend: Mitt's pious bullsh*t

The Carpetbagger Report: Did Romney’s speech work?

Lee Harris: How and Why Romney Bombed

Maureen Dowd: Mitt’s No J.F.K.

Matthew Yglesias: Romney's Terrible Speech

Along With Shooting Innocent Civilians, We've, Apparently, Outsourced Rape, As Well

When I first saw this article, I did a double-take.

It is a harrowing, sick, awful story, redeemed only by the courage of the victim to fight back, against our own Government.

As reported by ABC's Brian Ross (along with Maddy Sauer and Justin Rood), Jamie Leigh Jones, of Houston, was a KBR employee, at the time KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton, working in Iraq - in the Green Zone - when she was gang-raped by her own co-workers.

And before you think that was the only horrible incident that occurred;

"...The company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

"Don't plan on working back in Iraq. There won't be a position here, and there won't be a position in Houston," Jones says she was told.

And it still gets worse.

"According to her lawsuit, Jones was raped by "several attackers who first drugged her, then repeatedly raped and injured her, both physically and emotionally."

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

Much like they did when Blackwater USA mercenaries shot and killed 17 Iraqis, has Condoleeza Rice and the State Department given her rapists immunity?

And people criticized the career diplomats who balked at being consigned to serve at the still-a-disaster U.S. Embassy in Iraq?

Shut this nightmare down!

And put out the good vibes for Ms. Jones, that she can successfully, working against the stacked deck at the hands of our own government, can beat the odds and bring all these cretin bastards to justice.

Links

Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR

Shakespeare's Sister: Nobody Could Have Predicted Halliburton Was Pro-Rape

The Condoleezza Rice Ballroom Dancing & Charm School; Or: Shopping For A Legacy on Cyber Monday


















What do you say there, Madam Secretary? Will you see that justice prevails here? Will you help harbor Ms. Jones from her own, very painfully personal mushroom cloud?

Good Post Alert: Edward Copeland's "Is Dubya the Iranian Candidate?"

Well, one of the items my homefront situation delayed me on was hipping you to a great post from Edward Copeland, on his Copeland Institute for Lower Learning.

Is Dubya the Iranian Candidate?

"Could George W. Bush be the Iranian Candidate? Like Mrs. Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate, who spouted anti-communist rhetoric while secretly working for their agenda in the U.S., could Dubya really be an Iranian plant? Can you imagine anyone else who has done as much for Iran than he has?"

Or how about what the United States has done to Iran?

Being that a good chunk of the Homeland still believes Saddam Hussein ordered the Sept 11th attack, it would be asking way too much for these folk to have much more knowledge beyond last weeks' saber-rattling, and prophecies of a nuclear holocaust.

Going back to the 1950's, we meddled in Iranian affairs, to the point of instigating the removal of their democratically-elected president, so as to install our good friends, Going back to the 1950's.

For the next quarter-of-a-century, or-so, the Shah remained our friend as he brutalized his countryman, and pilfered the riches, but then the revolution caught the U.S., and the Shah, sleeping, leading to U.S. playing real estate agent for his home-in-exile and soon after we had the Jimmy Carter Hostage Crises (and birth of Ted Koppel's 'Nightline').

Then, in the 1980's, still pissed at the loss of power with our good friend, the Shah, the U.S. climbed in bed with ... Drum roll, please ... Saddam Hussein, funding and providing training, weapons and, yes, chemical weapons, for Iraq's war with their now-Ayatollah-run Iran.

So, you could cut Iran some slack, if they became a little jumpy when we flooded into Afghanistan, following September 11th, having experienced America's foreign policy, first-hand, and, if you will, a firm backhand.

And, certainly, we didn't calm their fears when the music stopped, and all out military scurried out of Afghanistan and grabbed the vacant chairs in Iraq, where we hunted down that heinous criminal, holder of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the despot ruler who used chemical weapons on his own people (and, if you've been paying attention, just where did he get these chemical weapons?), our old "friend", Saddam Hussein.

With the Bush Grindhouse placing Iran on their Axis of Evil list, and droning on about bombing them, you can expect that the collective Iran must feel like the little bookworm kid, seeing the big jock bullies coming to take his lunch money - again ...

We digress ...Go check out the Copeland post (which is also cross-posted on The Reaction)

Is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Dubya's Queen of Diamonds? ... Hmmmmm ... Not gonna say ...

Bonus Links

Breaking News! Confusion, As Ahmadinejad Claims He's Enrolling In Columbia, Wants "Campus Life Experience"; State Department Says No Defection Or Asylum Requested; Levi's and Girls Gone Wild Videos Factor In Iranian President Decision

Top Ten Cloves: Things Overheard, if President Bush and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Happen To Get On The Same U.N Elevator

Top Ten Cloves: Surprising Things About Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's New Blog

Editor's Note: Still Making Our Way To That Light At The End of The Tunnel

Good Evening Garlic Fans

We hope you all had a good weekend (and for those of you up here in the Northeast, oh boy, here we go again, with the Snow/Rain/Sleet thing).

As we noted on Thursday, the news was good and there was Light At The End of The Tunnel. Even managed to squeeze out two posts (actually, wrote a few more that haven't - and may not be - posted).

Things are going well with my Aunt and, while still pulling my usual attention and duties with her, I was looking forward to spending this weekend getting back on track.

Boy, was that ever so optimistic.

Saturday, it played out that she needed a bit more attention and I, when not performing those duties, hit a wall.

I was exhausted. While my mind was racing, all kinds of great posts shooting around like that movie, Koyaanasquatsi, I was dead tired and just couldn't sit in front of the computer.

Anchored the sofa, took many short naps and, caught a funky little documentary (The Ice Kings)

Today, Sunday, pretty much a replay of Saturday.

So, we're still trudging towards that light at the end of the tunnel, and, hopefully, tomorrow, it will all kick back in and, away we go.

Many thanks for your patience and understanding, as well as your visits to The Garlic

Peace
JTD